INT: Eating.
JR: Eating. One of the things that I've noticed about current television is that whenever there's an eating scene, the Actors don't eat. They may push aside a piece of mashed potato or a pea or two, but--and then they sneak a small morsel on an off-stage line, but you don't get that kind of eating that goes with reality. And it disturbed me. And when I was doing ALL IN THE FAMILY, one of the rules that I laid down, I think--well it came about two ways. One was, in an early rehearsal, the cast had been rehearsing a breakfast scene and the prop man had provided the water or, in the later days, some orange juice, and they were taking careful sips of orange juice and so on, it’s okay. And we used to do two shows, you remember. So at the 5:30 show, they were having trouble. They were choking, and stumbling over their lines, and when we came off for the dinner break before the nighttime show, they all complained about the orange juice. I said, "What's wrong?" They said the prop man had substituted orange juice with pulp and they were not used to it; it got stuck. Well, obviously. Pulpy orange juice can be a hazard if you haven't rehearsed with it. So from then on, I said, "Look, anything that is resembling food that's to be eaten on the air that food must be provided on the Friday rehearsal prior. I want the Actors to be completely comfortable what they're eating." And as you know, it's a matter of timing. You don't want to be caught with a mouthful of food so the words get slurred. On the other hand, you don't want to look like you're pecking away, like a sparrow in the street. And I said to this cast, particularly, I said, "When this cast assembles for dinner, I would like you to eat voraciously. I want you all to eat with a purpose. And the purpose is to eat and to get your fair share, there's a contest at work practically, which is kind of a family thing, in many families. And certainly we could get some comedy out of this if we are devoted to the process. Now the only way I know how to do this is to rehearse with real food so I would urge you not to have lunch. We will provide the food that we're going to eat on the show on Thursdays. Maybe Thursdays, usually Fridays, at least. And then certainly all day Monday and Tuesday." So the first days, the prop man opened up some cans of, I think it was Dinty Moore stew. And they ate the stew, but Carroll O'Connor came to me and said, "You know, I can't eat this stuff. This is really garbage. If you want me to eat, I've gotta look like I'm really eating." I said, "You like the stew at Chasen's?" He said, "Yeah, I love it." I said, "Okay." Well, the budget makers went bananas, but I said, "I want all the food brought in. It has to be Chasen's stew and all its intended stuff." They were delighted. And now the trick was, of course, once they were happy with the food, I said, "Now, rehearse with full mouthfuls so you know how much you got in that you could still articulate language, and get it out." Oh, it was wonderful. And of course, one day I remember we had a relatively weak script and I said, "You know, let's spend some more time on eating," and we choreographed--now it was very difficult. When you know, as a Director, if you--particularly if you want people to be reaching and not just bumping into one another but with a purpose. For example, if Carroll and Meathead [Rob Reiner’s role Michael ‘Meathead’ Stivic] would reach for the same piece of utensil at the same moment, there'd be a look between them that could get us mileage. Of course it did. Or, if Archie [Archie Bunker] would be liberally throwing ketchup on his food, Edith [Edith Bunker played by Jean Stapleton] would look at it in dismay and Archie would catch this look and then defiantly put more ketchup on. You know, that kind of action went on, and of course I said, "You have to eat as if there's no tomorrow." Ferocious. Which we did. And of course it was hysterical. But you had a real family just eating and contending. They don't do that anymore. And the reason is, they don't rehearse anymore. It's that simple. And the Actor cannot get caught.

INT: Well, the issue of rehearsing business. Let's talk a little bit about that because this is a piece of business. Here you’ve got--you've been sitting around the table and you've been working out the lines and figuring out what may and may not work in terms of the humor and the characters honesty, right? Now you're gonna get it up on its feet? How do--where does business come from?
JR: Well, it starts with my observations. First of all, I like the Actor's own instinct. Reach for something. Let's see what happens. And then we improvise that for a bit and then I say, "Okay, let's refine it to this extent." It's a painstaking process. It is not easy. But I like to take from the Actor first. I don't tell 'em, you must do this or that. I mean, one day we had a Chinese food sequence with chopsticks, and Edith [Edith Bunker played by Jean Stapleton] couldn't do it. She just used two sticks. Well, it was hysterical. I didn't give her that. She found it, but she found it out of her own truth. She didn't know how to use chopsticks, so she ate clumsily. And of course people were looking at her at the table. "How can you eat like that?" Of course it was hysterical. Reaching and arguing was always a good thing. You know, it's interesting. You talk about business. One day, we had a very good script and it was all about giving blood and we started by playing Monopoly around the table. And they would play Monopoly, they would roll, and we had to get the game exactly right. There was no fooling around. If you rolled--well, we invented the spaces, but we knew your next mark is this. And they would roll the dice, and then mark, and then talk. And the talk was so good that usually I get somebody up from the chair and serve coffee or something and I decided to tease myself. I wanted to see if I could do a full act with nobody getting up. Thirteen minutes. The talk was that good. And all I did was cover the people at the table. But, it was a triumph of rehearsal. You can't get there casually. And of course, my cast was so wonderful because they would fall in with my own whim sometimes and say, "Hey, that's a great idea. Let's see if we can do it." We gave ourselves little challenges. That kept it alive.

INT: That's an interesting issue about the idea of moving people, you know. I mean one of the--I'm glad you just told that story 'cause I know I'll often times be looking for ways not to keep people stationary. But sometimes it's just--it’s forced.
JR: It depends on how good the talk is. Sometimes people sit around and talk. And that only happened once, by the way. 'Cause I'd do what you just said. I always looked for some kind of motion to change the picture and just get some--but you know, another thing that I did which made people convinced that we shot in New York. I have an abhorrence about leaving doors open and I see sitcoms all the time where people walk in, leave the door wide open, never close it. And it's winter. And they're not wearing the right clothes. I insisted on wearing the right costumes. In fact, if you think about Bunker [Archie Bunker played by Carroll O’Conner] coming home, he always had that ill-fitting mackinaw [mackinaw jacket] and he would come in grumbling about something that happened, closed the door, hang it up. Now, it looks like a simple piece of business to talk and hang up clothing or open a closet door and hang up, as Edith [Edith Bunker played by Jean Stapleton] used to do. That had to be rehearsed to a fare thee well. You can't do it casually and as a result, you don't do it at all on shows that don't rehearse, so we have now pictorial radio in my opinion. We have radio writing, radio jokes, nobody moves. On THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, I had an Actor who was the most accomplished prop Actor I have ever known in my life, Dick [Dick Van Dyke], and who also was so limber that he could do anything in terms of a physical move. And I used to invent things for him like a--I was always fond of a pain take, you know, somebody who would put his hand on a stove and Dick would react. Maybe it’s cheap, but I don't know. It always got a laugh. And one day, we had a very weak script in which he thought he was allergic to his wife. It turned out to be a cat. Very weak. But I asked Dick, "How many different ways can you sneeze?" We found 33 different ways of sneezing. Incredible. But in the rehearsal we just would--and each one was a slight variation on the other. Sometimes he would just have his back turned to the audience. You'd just see a little hunch. Very discreet. [INT: That's hysterical.] Oh, I mean every time it happened, the audience laughed even more because they knew--he had to hide the sneeze from Mary [Mary Tyler Moore]. Almost exploding sometimes, you know, just holding it in. But we would look at each other and find those things and say, "Let's try this." And the only way it worked would be by intense rehearsals. We never went home early. Nowadays, they don't even show up. I'm told that FRIENDS shoots until three in the morning because they slot everything in. They just--and they have--did you know that they have stand-by audiences? [INT: Stand-by audiences?] Yes. The show is very popular and audiences come and watch, but audiences get bored and they will sit even on a great, popular show, they start to leave when it's dinnertime, 11 o'clock. There are people outside waiting to fill in the spot so they always have an audience. Even if it's two or three in the morning apparently. At least I was told that by someone who worked on it. But that loses the ambiance. I mean, I don't know how it works but obviously there's enough charm in the Actors themselves. And I like--at home, I don't like it but I guess I amuse myself. I look at an Actor's eyes all the time and I say, "That poor Actor." He or she has just stepped out of character and they're not thinking, "What am I supposed to be thinking?" They're saying, "What was that god blessed line they just gave me five minutes ago?" You can see the eyes just trying to search for the speech.

INT: That's funny, because I used to--when I would watch every now and then, SEINFELD, one of the things I would see is they would constantly break from their character, but that became part of the game. It was like, you know, Seinfeld [Jerry Seinfeld] couldn't tell a joke--
JR: Well Jerry was the most--[INT: Yeah, he would tell a joke and then be amused by the joke that he just told.] Yeah, exactly. [INT: I mean you're surrounded by people who are committed but, you know, it’s...] It's funny. I had hired Jerry on a show called BENSON in a very early incarnation. He was a delivery boy. And his job was to come in and tell three or four stale jokes from his stand-up to Krause [Miss Gretchen Wilomena Kraus played by Inga Swenson], the housekeeper. And it worked for about two or three weeks and then finally we decided it's too stale. We let him go. Little did we know that we were firing a multi-billionaire. And he had a great success with that show, I must say, but he was blessed, or they were blessed with those three characters behind him 'cause Jerry--Jerry's very good at playing straight but I quite agree with you that he laughed--he was like a child. [INT: Oh yeah, it was great.] Like a kid Actor.

INT: Now, here’s, you know, the form of things like if you look at ALL IN THE FAMILY now and you look at, I don’t know, FRIENDS now, just in terms of the form, the form's not that different. But the way of making them has really--[JR: It’s completely different.]--changed enormously. I mean, I'm not quite sure I understand why because--
JR: Well, I understand why. It's because of the late night rewrite. Unless you take into account the Actor's process, the Actor has to make the material his or her own. They're not given a chance. The Writers write every night in comedy today. But actually what they do is they dime. They send out for Chinese food, Italian food, pizzas, every kind of food. And you have this committee of Writers. 15 Writers sitting around pitching. How could you get anything done that's really brilliant? I guess once in awhile a line hits and they go with it. I had three Writers. All the time on DICK VAN DYKE [THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW], three Writers on ALL IN THE FAMILY. You know? It was a small group but they all knew the characters. They knew it very well. And they could write long scenes. What do you see today? Fifteen seconds is a scene and boop, boop, boop to the next moment. We did two twelve minute takes. [INT: That is very different, too.] Much different, yeah. But you play it stuff by stuff. God help me, I'm being--[INT: Your stuff, too.] Well, stuff that I was associated with. I was on a cruise ship recently where I was a lecturer and played some of the ALL IN THE FAMILY tapes and it was remarkable that the audience--it was a big house, quite a large theater on the ship--and the audience laughing at the material was in exact timing with the audience that the Actors had played with and you could see the way business was invented to cover the time of laugh. Also, I was in the control room in those days and I could either cut off or extend the laugh by the way I snapped for the shot. [INT: Right.] And it didn't amaze me, exactly, but I was pleased that the audience watching the film today was exactly the same as the audience that had seen it originally.

INT: Let's talk about the control booth and the relationship. You're on the floor with the Actors for your three days--[JR: First three days.]--and that is intensely, just the group of you--
JR: Pardon me. That's what we're doing, video. Not film. Film, there's no--I don't go in a booth in film. [INT: Right.] Okay. [INT: But when you then went into the booth, what's the change in the experience for you, as a Director? What happens now?] Well, you went into a mechanical--a more mechanical mode, at least for the first day. Then I would tell the Actors, "Do not act. This is a rehearsal day for the cameras." And what we would do is we’d--I would mark a script at home on the weekend with all the shots that I was predicting would work. And my AD, Bob LaHendro in this case, would give those notes to the cameras. And each Cameraman, Cameraperson nowadays, would have--well even then, I had a woman, camera lady. They would mark their little sheets with the shots that were expected from their position. And Bob would call the ready for the next shot and I would just snap my fingers when I wanted to change the cut and the Technical Director would push the button. But in the rehearsal, I'd have to make adjustments quite often. And, you know, if you're adept at it, you could do it rather quickly. But it could get to be tough. I did not like to talk to the Actors over the public address system. If I had something more to say than just, you know, "You've gotta move left," I would go down to the floor and talk to them. So I always had the control room configuration set so I could run out very quickly. Other than that, it was similar. I loved doing it from the booth, frankly. Loved it. Because I was like an orchestra conductor. I could retard, or extend--I was just thinking about when Sammy Davis [Sammy Davis Jr.] did our show.

JR: Did I talk about Sammy [Sammy Davis, Jr.] in the past? [INT: No.] Well, Sammy Davis, it came to our attention the first 13 weeks of our show that Sammy had gone on THE JOHNNY CARSON SHOW and had talked about this new series, which, we were very happy to get the publicity. And he said, "It's a great show with this Bunker [Archie Bunker] character.” He said, “Can you imagine if I was on that show? A one-eyed colored Jew," is the way he put it. And he got his laugh, and we were properly grateful. But a couple of days later, Sy Marsh of the William Morris Agency called. He was Sammy's agent. And he said to Lear [Norman Lear], first, and then me, "When are you gonna put Sammy on the show?" And both of us said, "You're not gonna put Sammy on the show. This show is based on a kind of truth and reality. How the hell do you put Sammy Davis into that living room?" And Sy said, "He'll play a part." And we said, "No, no. If Sammy ever shows on a show, he's Sammy. You don't want to change that." He said, "Well, how about--" So I talked to Norman about it and the more we talked, the more convinced we were, this was not the kind of show we want to do. Because it's what you call the one in a million story, and once you start that process, it's like jumping the shark. You know that phrase? [INT: No, but it's a great phrase. Jumping the shark?] It's en vogue now. When a show jumps the shark, it means it's on its way out. And it comes from the usage in HAPPY DAYS when Henry Winkler as the Fonz literally jumped over a shark in the ocean, you know? I think it was, I never saw the episode, but I know that's what it was. And when Fonzie jumped the shark, then you know you're in trouble. And there were shows every once in awhile that jumped the shark, and they're dying. [INT: Got it.] 'Cause it’s just too outlandish. Even for the outlandish. So we didn't want to do it. That phrase was not extent at that time. I just put that together now. But we said, "No, it's a one in a million. We don't want that." But Sy was persistent. And Sammy kept talking on JOHNNY CARSON. He's gonna be on the show. So one day Lear and I were talking and Norman said, "You know, he has a way of putting, a possible way, of putting Sammy into the house." I said, "What?" He said, "Well, we give Bunker a second job moonlighting as a cab driver." And he outlined the idea that Sammy would be a passenger, leave his briefcase in the car. Bunker comes home all excited. He says, "Guess who I had in the cab today?" You know? He had the family guessing. And Meathead [Michael ‘Meathead’ Stivic played by Rob Reiner] said, "Well, from the looks of what you've said, he had to be black." He said, "Well, that's right." And so, I think it was Edith [Edith Bunker played by Jean Stapleton] who guessed, "Harry Belafonte?" And Archie looks at her disdainfully, says, "Harvey Belafonte ain’t black. He's a good looking white guy dipped in caramel." Harvey. [INT: That would stay on the air? Dipped in caramel?] Oh, that was on the air. We used that. He disdained her suggestion, and somebody said, "Well, boy, you really must be--" He said, "Bingo. This guy isn't just black. He's the ace of spades." Well, we did, you know, politically not correct. And he reveals that it's Sammy Davis. Okay. And they're all excited that Sammy Davis left the briefcase. And Archie has turned the briefcase in to Munson [Bert Munson played by Billy Halop], who owns the cab. And then the telephone call comes and it's Sammy and Archie has a one-way conversation where he goes berserk because Sammy says, he's on his way to the airport and since they live in Queens, he can stop over and pick up the briefcase. Archie gets really excited and he calls Munson and says, "Bring over the briefcase. Sammy Davis is coming to our house. You can't tell anybody." Well, of course, the neighborhood knows and pretty soon the place is flocking with people with cameras and one woman comes in with her daughter in a Shirley Temple dress, and she rolls out a tap floor, you know. And the kid starts to tap. Bunker is going crazy. "Get outta here! Get everybody out." And Sammy does arrive. Now, when Sammy--we finally made the script. That pipe was laid about a year in advance. You had to give him a job--you couldn't give him a job just today to be Sammy Davis's driver. We started him driving a cab in several episodes. Quite a few episodes. Almost a year. And then we made the deal. But I said, "The deal is contingent on my talking to Sammy first." And I said to him, "I want to explain something." I said, "I know you've been used to working with Bob Hope and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and people. And they all use cue cards. And we don't do that here.” He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, you learn the material." He said, "Oh. I can do that." I said, "I know you can. You're a marvelous performer. But I want to be certain that you understand that there can be no cue cards." I said, "The reason is simple. On those shows, I can see everybody reading off-camera, and they're not real. And this is gonna be the real you and a real family. No cue cards. Also, the first three days of the show are rehearsal and your entourage cannot be here." "What? My boys can't be in the room?" I said, "That's right. They have to sit in the corridor." He said, "Well, who's gonna bring me my Manischewitz?" He was drinking wine. I said, "The Manischevitz stays out in the hallway.” I said, “Look, I also want to warn you,” I said, “This is not a two-hour rehearsal.” I said, “We rehearse eight to ten hours." He said, "You're kidding." I said, "No. It's the only way the show works. Are you okay?" He looked a little uncertain but he said, "Yeah." He didn't believe me. But the second day, at the tenth hour, he looked at me and said, "You weren't kidding, were you?" I said, "No." Then on the third day, he had a speech that was about that long on the page and he said, "John I can't do this. I've gotta have a cue card." I said, "Sam, I'm so sorry. You can't." He said, "What? How can I do it?" I said, "You are a great performer. One of the best that ever lived. You've got Friday and Saturday. Go home and learn the damn thing.” I said, “Come in and you'll be fine. Just study." I said, "You can do it." Well, he was brilliant. But something very interesting happened. And I guess I'm setting the record straight because for Christmas, somebody gave me a collection of some of the greatest scenes in show business--I'm gonna back up a little bit. It's the first day, and Sammy is there at the reading. And we're reading together and the script is okay. It had flaws. But I knew there was--if I see a script that's better than 50%, I'm happy. 'Cause I know that I can--the rest could come on the floor and it'll be improved. It'll be alright. If it's under 50, I don't want to touch it. But it's something that's in my head. It'll work or it won't work. But I was sitting at the end of the table at the end of the first reading. I was sitting there with my head in my hands thinking, "There's something very wrong here." And Norman Lear came over and said, "What's the matter?" I said, "I think we've got, potentially, a very good episode,” I said, “But the ending is very troubling. It's so weak." He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, right now, one of the neighbors comes over with a camera and wants to take a picture, and Bunker says, 'No, you can't.' And Sammy says, 'No, I want to remember this day forever' and they take a picture." I said, "I think you've gotta have something physical.” I said, “It just--it doesn’t seem--it just kinda lays there." And then the more I thought about it, I started to laugh. And Norman said, "What?" I said, "I think Sammy oughta kiss him on the cheek." And Norman looked at me and said, "You think so?" Now it's interesting in retrospect, I was thinking--I think Norman said that in the voice of someone who has just heard something not invented here, you know, if he had written it, it was genius, but when I suggested it, he said he wasn't sure. I said, "Yeah, I really think we oughta try it." Well of course, it's one of the greatest laughs in the history of television. But in the notes on this DVD or something that was given to me about great moments in television, that was one of them. Sammy Davis kisses Archie Bunker on the cheek. And in the liner notes, Norman said, "Sammy Davis came up with that idea." 'Cause he didn't remember having written it. And I haven't called him on it. I'm calling him on it now, Norman. [INT: We've got it on tape.] If you're watching this, believe me, I don't often look for pride of authorship, but I did come up with that one because I just didn't know how to get out of that scene without something effective. And you talk about the timing. I cut that live and I looked at it. What I--I set it up so that I have a long shot as he's saying good-bye. And just at the moment of kiss, I wanted--I had to work it out with the Actor who's taking the flash and Sammy. I said, "Sammy, you count for the photo, '1, 2, 3.' And on 3 I want the actor taking the flash, and I would hit the cut. And I went from the long shot to a close-up cut of the two faces. And I'm so prideful of this, I can talk about it because in both cases, the afternoon show and the evening show, I caught her on the exact microsecond of time that made it a perfect cut, that you would have made a cut if you were in a cutting room. But I was able, with that help, to time it, and it was--we rolled it down and it was within a half second. Both of them were exactly at the same moment. It was just a nice piece of timing. Oh, you talked about timing before. That, too, was timing.

JR: And it reminds me of Jose Perez. You remember the actor? [INT: Sure. I worked with him.] Did you? [INT: Sure.] Well, what did you think? [INT: I had a great time. I used him repeatedly.] Did you really? [INT: Oh yeah.] Well, he--any comedy? [INT: Any comedy? Yes, I did, actually. He played the comic foil to believe--how about this? Oliver Reed.] No. And what film was that? [INT: This was a--it was a picture I did at Universal. Go on. Let me hear this.] Well, I cast Jose. [INT: We're talking about little Jose?] Little Jose, yeah. I cast him. I was doing the American version of a British series called PORRIDGE with Ronnie Barker, and they were cons, inmates, of a prison. And I had a minimum-security prison and I wanted the American equivalent of non-threatening felon. And I had seen Jose in STEAMBATH, which I thought was brilliant. I later found out that he had been cut into it a performance. I didn't realize that. Week to week. He was not that good with dialogue and we were using a kind of patois that was similar to Damon Runyon in the sense of, it was Runyon-esque only by reference. It was written by Clement [Dick Clement] and La Frenais [Ian La Frenais], two wonderful British Writers. And they came over from Britain and did--[INT: I remember both of them.]--they did the American--they’re very good. [INT: Yeah, yeah.] And they made no concession to language in their show. These felons, his British counterpart, all spoke with accents. They had Cockney accents, but it was Oxford English. And very literary. They had allusions all over the place that were way above that particular part of the population, which was in its own way a very--so I had the same thing. I had a black character, and I had several people, all of whom, including the guards. It was a black and a white--Tom Poston [Thomas Gordon “Tom” Poston] was a white guard, and Mel Stewart [Milton “Mel” Stewart] was the black guard. All of them spoke a patois that was far above their expected station. Jose had trouble with this because, while he was Puerto Rican, I wanted that Puerto Rican accent. But he had to carry a lot of the exposition and he found that very difficult, that he wanted, very hard, to change it. And we said, "No, Jose. Part of the charm--" he never understood, I must say. "The charm is that you're using polysyllabic language without consciousness." Well, anyway. So he fought us a little bit, but we did our first show and we had a New York Times review. And Jose--it was a positive review. And around the table the next day, Jose was picking up the paper. Now, one of his problems was timing. He couldn't really get it exactly right. We had to literally cut him into better time. Well, you know that. Because he worked at a different area. It was good, but it was not easy to get. You understand. So he's reading the thing, and he said, "Oh, look at this. Great review." He said, "And the Times said actor Jose Perez, brilliant because of his wonderful sense of timing. Hey, John. What's timing?" I said, "Jose, you don't have to ask because you've got it." [laughs] Oh yeah, well listen, you win some lose some.

INT: Who are, as you think about it--[JR: I’m sorry, who, what?] Who are some of the brilliant people that you've known or were--
JR: Oh, my god. [INT: Well, who comes to mind?] Well, the first thing is Sid Caesar, he was my neighbor, and we are very good friends. I did not know him professionally. Well, I did work with him once in the later years. But I was an avid fan of the SHOW OF SHOWS [YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS], which was sheer genius on the hoof. I mean I have never seen anything like that, with that cast and that ability--those Writers. I mean, you know who wrote that show? I mean, not just, you know--Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart. I mean--[INT: Some of the funniest guys.] Did I say Neil Simon, Mel Brooks? [INT: Yeah.] Lucille Kallen, Mel Tolkin. Mel Tolkin, who came from Russia. He actually wrote in a second language. Carl [Carl Reiner?] was always fond of talking about Mel. He once read a sign that said "No U-Turn," and he read it [dramatically], "No U-Turn?" It became an argument on a post. [Laughs] I mean, I used to--I was the Stage Manager on THE JACK CARTER SHOW, which was the first hour of THE SATURDAY NIGHT REVUE. And the second 90 minutes was THE SHOW OF SHOWS. And we used to finish our work quickly on Saturday nights and go to the Blue Ribbon Cafe next door, with wonderful German beer and food, and we would watch THE SHOW OF SHOWS, and that was my--one of my comedy universes--universities. To watch this skill and Sid with his ability to double-talk and to pantomime, and to improvise, and to realize they shot that live. Performed that live. 90 minutes every week. It was extraordinary. Do you remember the thing he did one day when he was playing Pagliacci? And he was making up as the clown and he was in white face and he had--he was adding teardrops to the make-up, and he's singing the sad song of the Pagliacci character. And he's starting to draw a tear and the eyebrow pencil he was working with broke. So he had a little mark, but he never stopped singing. He continued this line 'cause it had gone too long to be a tear and he continued it and he drew a parallel line, still singing, then he crossed it, and he played tic tac toe on his face. X's and O's. And still singing in the double-talk Italian, and finishing up with [sings] "Just one of those days." You can't even conceive of an Actor that can do that. Now, I see him--my wife [Patricia Rich] and I, and he and Florence, his wife, we have dinner together frequently. And he talks very softly and he does not tell jokes, but he loves to hear my jokes. I'll tell him a joke and he'll go bananas, you know. But sometimes we will ask him, I remember one day Pat [Patricia Rich] asked him, "Is it true you once held Mel Brooks out of a ten story window?" By the way, he was exceptionally strong. Did you know that? He was in a rage once and he pulled a sink out of the wall. Well, now, you can't pull a sink out of a wall unless you have superhuman strength. He was once in traffic, driving, and a guy behind him was honking his horn impatiently, and there was nowhere he could go. He was stuck. It was a traffic jam. Honk, honk, honk. He took as much as he could. He finally got out of the car. And as he strode back--and he was a hunk of a man, he's much thinner now. And the guy saw him coming and he rolled up his window real fast, but he had left a little wing window open. You know, that triangle. And Sid reached through and grabbed this guy, and started to pull him. He says, "Do you remember your birth?" [Laughs] He was going to pull him through that-- [Laughs] So Pat, my wife, Pat said to him one day, "Is it true about Mel Brooks?" He said, and he's very interesting 'cause in ordinary conversation he's very laid back, very quiet, but the minute you ask him about something that can be played, he goes into character. And he became Sid Caesar, the performer. He said, "Well, we were in a hotel room, he'd just done a show.” He said, “Now, you know, on shooting days,” he said, “I don't eat. But when the show is over, I have room service." And he went into a mode. He said, "I'm sitting there and I've got my steak and I've got my lobster, and I've got my sparkling burgundy." He said, "I'm going to eat, and I got my fork and I got my knife, and Mel says, 'Sid, let's go out.' And I said, 'Mel, I'm having my dinner. Don't bother me.' And he started to cut food and Mel said, 'Come on, Sid. Let's get out of here. I don't like the hotel room.' And he said, 'I like what I'm eating.'" And he started to eat, and again, he pantomimed everything brilliantly. I can't do it, obviously. But he said, "Mel was like a gnat. And finally he said, 'Sid, come on. I've gotta get out of here.'" And he said, "Alright," and he said, "I put down my knife and fork and I went over to the window, and I picked him up by his ankles, and I held him out the window, I said, 'Are you out far enough?'" [Laughs] And he took him back in. [INT: And now we have THE PRODUCERS.] Oh, well, Mel he’s--Mel is so brilliant. He would do things, he walked down a street with somebody, and two nuns would be coming the other way. One day he saw two nuns and he said, "Go back to the costume house! The bit has been cut!" [Laughs] I mean, out of nowhere--

INT: But, but here's an interesting issue. This is almost a philosophical issue, because, where did the kiss of Sammy Davis [Sammy Davis, Jr.] come from? I mean, if you really ask where's the--there are leaps! You can't logically get to those places. You can, but you don’t.
JR: I don't know how it got there. [INT: But you don't understand. I'm saying--] Yeah, but I was looking for activity. Business. Physical. Something had to be done, not just spoken words to end this thing, because we had some magnificent words already. But I wanted it to be physical. And I guess the word physical gave me a clue. Mel [Mel Brooks], also, the first time he was in Paris, doing French, not knowing a word of it, for about ten days. And finally, having had enough, he leaped up in the middle of the street and he yelled, at the top of his lungs, "Alright! Joke over! Everybody go back to talking regular!" People are looking at him like--talking regular? You know, he was on our Board of Directors for a time. Did you know that? [INT: No.] On the Directors Guild [Directors Guild of America]. [INT: Really?] And one day when there was--[INT: I think I did. I think when I just first--] He was on for about two years, as I recall. And he was always coming up with strange asides. One day, there was just an opening for a moment in the conversation around the table and he said, "Um." And we all looked at him. And he said, "Nowhere in the Bible is there any mention of anybody named Satchmo." Well, okay. [Laughs] Okay. And we went on, and a little while later, he said, "The battleship Hindenburg was first known as Kurt and Otto's Boat." [Laughs] I mean, it's like, come on. Or was it the zeppelin Hindenburg? No, no, he called it the battleship. But there was a different battleship. It was the Graf Spee [German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee] and the--was it the Hindenburg? No, the Bismarck. [INT: Bismarck] The Bismarck was sunk. He said, "The battleship Bismarck was first known as Kurt and Otto's Boat." Where did I get Hindenburg? Oh, Hindenburg was--[INT: Was another major German vehicle.] Another major German character, yeah. What was the other thing he said that was so crazy? Oh, at a time that we were getting people from Iran moving into Beverly Hills, again, a lull in the conversation, he said--he would just pick up and jump in with, "The smallest Arab village in the world is the tiny hamlet of Zarak! The largest Arab village in the world is Beverly Hills!" [Laughs] He would make these insane pronouncements. He'd get laughs and then we'd go on, but I think he wasn't getting enough laughs. Oh. Speaking of the audience without laughter that is mystified, in the area of laughs, Mel once said, memorably, and this is interesting. "I would lie on the bottom of the Yangtze River and breathe through a reed to get a laugh." Well, that's a great image, but not just a pool of water. [INT: No, but it's the Yangtze.] The Yangtze River. One of the deepest waterways in the world, and a reed. I mean, can you image that Paul Muni image from, what was it? [INT: GANGS OF--CHAIN GANG.] CHAIN GANG. I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG. I don't know where that mind comes from, but it is brilliant.

INT: Now, have you had--and one of the issues that we have to deal with is the multiple characters of the personalities of Actors. No Actor is the same. And some Actors are more challenging because they're in outer space. How do you handle this?
JR: Well, it's like the porcupine making love; with great care. You can't just plunge in. Some of them are--and yet, I don't know if I've been successful or not. In some cases, I have been successful. In others, you just have to take it. I mean, the dreaded Shelley Winters is a great example. I mean, you can't direct this person. You just, you let her do her 90 takes and you cut her into a performance. I've talked about her before. [INT: A little bit.] My friend George Stevens used to say--because I said to him, when I was having trouble with her on a film. I said to George, "You used her twice, in A PLACE IN THE SUN and in ANNE FRANK, THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK. Do you find her difficult?" He said, "Difficult?" He said, "She's impossible. But she does her work, sort of, and usually she likes pain. So I give her a call for six in the morning and make her sit in the hot dressing room all day and I don't call her." I said, "Yeah, but this kind of taming is something you can do on a two-year schedule the way you shoot." I said, "I've got 35, 40 days. You can't fool around with that kind of thing." He said, "Well, every once in awhile, it's useful to hit her with a 2x4. She'll love you for it." And what he meant was, she was masochistic. And of course, in a sense, that is correct, 'cause she snuck into one of my dailies one day, which I don't like; Actors watching my dailies. And when the lights came up, there she was. And she said, with exuberance, she said, "My god, I'm good in this thing! Hey John, I've got a hunch you and I are gonna do a lot of films together." And I said, "Bullshit, Shelley, this is it." And I meant it. There was just no way I would work with her again because it was just too difficult.